Israel Strikes: Where we at

Let's review where things stand at the end of Israel Strikes, War of the Red Sea.

Israel has destroyed Iran's nuclear program and all but annihilated Hezbollah. Members cannot show their faces in Beirut. 

Later, Israel launched a mini-invasion of Sudan and destroyed Iranian bases there. During the War of the Red Sea, the Israeli navy waged a covert naval war against Iranian ships. 

The Israelis launched a lightening raid into Gaza to take the fight to Hamas and neutralize their rocket capability. 

International activists escorted by the Turkish navy tried to breach the Gaza blockade but were turned back by the Kriegsmarine(!).

Under the new prince, Saudi Arabia is modernizing and secretly allied with Israel. The Saudis have taken Arabian Gulf islands previously in Iran's possession. 

The Eitan Ministry has been voted out of office. In America, President Stettler lost the election.

So that's where we are. Iran is neutralized. So's Syria (talk about being overtaken by events). There's nothing more we can do to them. Things are set up for an Israeli/Turkish conflict, which would be interesting. Hmmmm sparked by mass unrest on the West Bank?

If It's Wednesday, it's Will's Writing

A nice glide like hour on the treadmill yesterday. As we suspected our foot problems went away after the first few minutes. It's almost easy, but we're interested not in speed, but time.

Qbi Wan says keep an eye on Bibi. Things are happening. He couldn't go into further detail. He also says watch closely the Capitol Hill Mostly Peaceful Protest trials. We asked about The Chauvin Show Trial and Qbi Wan told us to back off. These people are prickly as hell, and with considerable justification. Whenever he feeds us intel, reader(s) should always ask why. What is the agenda? What is the plot within the plot? We're using Qbi Wan and Qbi Wan is using us. Q gets to funnel information through us and we learn cool stuff. Yes, we're sitting on intel, some with hard release date, some with a soft date. We'll have something new next week.

Lots of lazy and lackadaisical writing in The Final Storm so far. There's a lot of flyboys standing around the tarmac, drinking coffee and saying to one another,  guess this is the big one.  But we had something of a breakthrough yesterday and are kinda-sorta encouraged/enthused. The situation in-toto is not that bad.

This is nice to see:

As to Defend the Earth was our first novel that sold, we've never understood why TSTE didn't. Which just goes to show that book sales are not a science but an art. TSTE became our wayward, unloved novel, and any sales at all are a thrill. You know, A Line Through the Desert, gets decent and steady sales now? Huh. Most gratifying. World War 1990: Castro's Folly has moved into the second slot, which just proves our theory of new readers coming in. Those that started Arctic Storm have moved ahead in the series.

Life continues to mimic Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea. The JPost reports: Israel notified the US that it is responsible for the Tuesday attack on an Iranian cargo ship affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, an American official told The New York Times..."The Saviz civilian ship was stationed in the Red Sea region and the Gulf of Aden to establish maritime security along the shipping lanes and to counter piracy," said the spokesman. "This ship practically acted as a logistics station (technical support and logistics) of Iran in the Red Sea, and therefore the specifications and mission of this ship had previously been officially announced." Israeli commandos swam up to the ship and attached lipid mines. Ok we never had them do anything like that in War of the Red Sea.  Perhaps we have been underestimating the Jews? The Imams are right, the Jew is clever. 

Yes, yes, we might still do a third Israeli novel this summer. There's no business reason not to write the damn thing. Reviews for War of the Red Sea trickle in. We find these most encouraging, like a woman being asked up to a hotel suite with a great view. [You know that sort of thing really does work-Ed]. We know. We are masters in the art of seduction [Sorry folks. Sometimes all you can do is play along with this knobhead and hope he goes away-Ed].

Ad This: Israel Strikes

On Wednesday World War 1990: Battle of the Three Seas had it's best day of KU reads so far. All without advertising.

Yesterday we happened to find our old Israel Strikes sales sheet, in which we meticulously documented daily sales coinciding with the launch of  new ads. The sales sheet did show some spikes correlating with  new ads, but for the  most part the sales line remained steady. Were the spikes just a result of, 'Well it's Friday, I need to find something to read for the weekend,?

[That's your Friday-Ed]

And a glass of ice, and a bottle of whisky and an Arturo Fuente Gran Reserva....

[And Pornhub-Ed]

What's Pornhub?

Anyway, clearly we thought we needed to advertise to keep sales steady. But as time passed sales gradually declined, by 40-60% per month, regardless of ads.

We are now wondering if the advertising was largely unnecessary and the sales rates were happening organically. That is, were the algorithm and demand doing all the work? 

Yesterday's Best Seller Was...

...Israel Strikes.

We guess in times of crisis people really like books about the Israelis blowing the crap out Iran.

No updates on the Knesset rigmarole, but we read a story about authorities in Israel and NYC having trouble keeping the Haredi/Hasidim from gathering. Anyone who knows these people knows that will happen. Those herring eating bastards are going to get us all infected.

Strikes Israel?

We've once again gotten a visitor asking about a third Israel Strikes novel.

What third Israel Strikes novel?

Thanks folks, don't forget to tip your waitresses.

Anywho, alert readers will recall that War of the Red Sea ends with Iranian intel agents handing Rosensweig a dirty bomb.

To be honest, Israel Strikes was supposed to be a one-off novel. But it did so well we thought we'd be a moron not to do another.

We did some interesting things in War of the Red Sea, espionage, naval warfare, etc, and we planned to wrap things up in a third novel.

And then we got the idea for World War 1990. The series is all consuming and at this point we feel death will be our only escape.

Our tentative idea for a third Israel Strikes novel was a war with Egypt. But in the ensuing years we've kind of gotten our air and armored warfare fix, haven't we?

We have the germ of an idea, something with the Krauts and Turks and...we dunno.

If readers have a suggestion we're all ears. Is there some other angle we haven't thought of? What more can we do to Iran? At this point, we feel bad for them.

Also, if readers have any time to contirbute....

Tuesday Tally

Since someone checked in and asked about the Israel Strikes series. We had planned a war with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt but it's not happening.

Here are five reasons there will never be a third installment.

1-It's old hat. Jesus, we wrote that in 2012.
2-It's been overtaken by events.
3-The Muslim Brotherhood was overthrown by the army.
4-The sequel was probably unnecessary.
5-We have no new ideas.*
6-Holy Hell we're swamped.**
*Oh go ahead and put ideas in the comments.
**Ok Six reasons.

Strike This

We present as an Alpha male but are a born Beta. Our Alpha maleness is hard goddamn work.

We're actually pretty shy.

Which is why we've never really told anyone at our own synagogue that we wrote two novels about the Israelis blowing the crap out of Iran, or even what we do for a living.

Last week when taking our oldest to afternoon Hebrew school we brought a couple of copies of Israel Strikes and War of the Red Sea.

While waiting for our oldest to finish we paged through Israel Strikes. The writing is quick and sparse and holds up six years after publication.

War of the Red Sea came out in 2014. We left the latter with a cliffhanger. We never wrote the third novel. Five years on we are wrapped up in World War 1990. Frankly, we have no ideas.

If anyone has an idea for book 3, we'd like to hear it.

By the way, we left the novels lying around in the lobby and skulked off without telling anyone.

The Israel Strikes Passover Cunumdrum

After our lament on how new Egyptian President for life Abdel al-Sisi ruined our planned third Israel Strikes book, valued reader Donald Harris said we should write the damn book anyway.

Oh we had big plans. Massive tank battles in the Sinai, aerial duels over Cairo, daring Israeli commando raids on the coast of Africa, intrepid Israel engineers laying down baily bridges in the Suez, some sort of climactic Israeli moral dilemma...

[Hey, that sounds pretty good-Ed]

I know, right?

Anyhoo....the problem is two fold. These techno-thrillers are supposed to be speculative. Frankly al-Sisi's Egypt is not going to war with Israel. The Egyptians hate terrorism just as much as Charleton Heston's people, and loath the Palestinians even more. All Arabs loath the Palestinians. Also, via the World War 1990 series, we kind of have our modern warfare fix.

I dunno. Maybe a conflict with the Turk?

In Which Life Thwarts Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea

Via St. Breitbart of LA we learn that Egypt's president is packing it in:

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ruled out a constitutional amendment to extend his term, saying an election would be held next year and he will not run again in 2022, in an interview with CNBC Monday. 

Sisi is a former army chief who overthrew his Islamist predecessor in 2013 and won an election a year later.

Some of his supporters including a member of parliament want to allow Sisi to stay longer in office by extending the time between elections and removing the two four-year-term limit.

But Sisi said elections will take place as scheduled in March or April 2018 and he would not ask for a constitutional amendment.

We had plans for a third Israel Strikes novel involving a war between Israel and an Egypt controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Sisi's coup in 2013 pretty much ended that idea.

We even wrote 10,000 pages or so.

Actually what became Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea was supposed to be a subplot of the
the war with Egypt.

Of course it's a stand-alone novel now.

Alas we feel the series has probably been overtaken by events.

In Which Life Imitates Will Stroock

Or we should say Israel Strikes and Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea.

Via the BBC:

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said the return of "moderate Islam" is key to his plans to modernise the Gulf kingdom.
He told reporters that 70% of the Saudi population was under 30 and that they wanted a "life in which our religion translates to tolerance".
The prince vowed to "eradicate the remnants of extremism very soon".

We've long loathed Saudi Arabia and agreed with former Bush adviser Richard Perle who wanted to seize the bastard's oil fields:

In mid-2002 word leaked to the press that the semi-official Defense Policy Board, chaired by the notorious cold warrior Richard Perle, had sponsored a report declaring Saudi Arabia to be part of the problem of international terrorism rather than part of the solution. Saudi Arabia, the report stated, was "central to the self-destruction of the Arab world and the chief vector of the Arab crisis and its outwardly-directed aggression." It went on to say, "The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader."

Anyway in Israel Strikes  the Israelis have to work with the Saudis to attack Iran. The prince is a reformer, based on Justin Trudeau (don't ask), and uses Israel's overflight of Saudi Arabia to indict the king and foment a revolution.

In Israel Strikes War of the Red Sea he's doing press interviews about reforming Saudi Arabia.

Do we nail these things or what?

Locked in the Cabinet

Our novels usually feature a lot of cabinet meetings, plans, machinations, back stabbings and such.

We've noted before that not only are we getting tired of writing these scenes, we suspect that the reader is getting tired of these scenes. 

We kept the cabinet meetings to an absolute minimum in Castro's Folly. During the entire first half of the book showing fighting in Honduras and Angola not one single cabinet meeting takes place. Still they crept in later on when the US is gathering a coalition to invade Cuba. Even so some readers complained that they didn't really know what was happening. 

Cabinet meetings work great for that because they give on a bird's eye view.

We've been binge watching Game of Thrones season 7. There's a lot of meetings between Danarys, Tyrian, etc, etc and we've found these both informative and fascinating.

Maybe we should rethink scaling back the cabinet meetings.

Welcome Saudi Friends!

We can't help but notice a significant amount of traffic coming from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For whatever reason, this Jew seems to be popular with the denizens of of the desert.

You know guys, the kingdom plays quite an integral role in Israel Strikes:

Also, Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea:

Israel Rocks

So 35 years ago today the Israelis launched Operation Mole Cricket, their grand aerial assault on Syrian SAM positions in the Bekaa. This is part of their invasion of Lebanon and easily its most successful aspect.

Since the Yom Kippur War, when the Israelis suffered massive air losses due to Egyptian SAMs, the Israelis developed anti-SAM tactics and invested heavily in electronic warfare.

The Israelis used dozens of EW aircraft to confuse the Syrians and struck. On the first day of fighting they destroyed 14 SAMs and took out a further eleven after the Syrians brought in reinforcements. Results in the air were just as impressive. In two days of dog-fighting the Israels shot down more than 80 Syrian aircraft while losing none of their own. The Syrians never knew what hit them, only that the Israeli used EW to conceal their own operations and misdirect the Syrians.

If you like air and ground combat in the Bekaa Valley, you'll love Israel Strikes.

Speaking of Syria...

I wrote Israel Strikes in 2012. Back then Syria's civil war was not the nihilistic bloodbath we see now. As such I imagined the nation cobbled back together under the rule of a military dictator.

When said dictator needs a way to rally and unify his people, he see's Israel's war with Iran and chooses to jump in. There follows a massive air battle and ground campaign for the Golan Heights culminating in the 'Highway of Tears':

As the platoon slowly made its way through the wreckage, Gonzo looked to his right, back toward the Golan. There were explosions in that direction as Israeli forces engaged the Syrian rear echelon elements. To the east, toward Damascus, he could make out the rest of Division 162, two brigades, as they pushed toward the city. The Beirut/Damascus highway was just ahead of them.They emerged on the other side of the now wrecked missile battery to see a vast open plain, dotted by only a few small ridges and the Beirut/ Damascus highway.‘Holy crap!’ said the gunner.Gonzo looked forward. About a kilometer away was the highway. From east to west it was packed with tanks, trucks, and armored vehicles - crawling along the road bumper to bumper to the Golan.‘Target, dead ahead!’ shouted the gunnerWithout waiting for the order, the gunner fired. A few seconds later a Syrian APC exploded in a ball of flame. The other tanks in the platoon fired, destroying three more Syrian vehicles in quick succession. The gunner looked at Gonzo. ‘Get down there and load!’ He pushed Gonzo down into the turret.‘AP!’ the gunner shouted at Gonzo.‘Huh?’‘A-P!’ he shouted again. The loader pointed to one shell storage locker. ‘This holds AP rounds!’ He pointed to the next. ‘This holds HE. This one over here holds Frag. Got it!’‘I don’t know anything about loading it.’‘Like this!’ In frustration the gunner pressed a lever on the turret floor which opened the AP storage locker, took a shell out, and slammed it into the breach of the main gun. ‘It is not rocket science, see!’‘I see.’’The gunner got back in his seat, lined up a Syrian tank, and firedThe gun breach flew back and spit out a spent shell.‘AP!’ the gunner shouted.Gonzo hit the floor peddle, grabbed an AP shell and slammed it into the breach.‘There you go.’Gonzo heard the company commander on the radio, ‘What is going on down there?!’The platoon commander responded. ‘We just found half the Syrian army in front of us!’‘Do not exaggerate.’‘Come see for yourself.’‘I am coming down to your position now.’‘Good, Captain, bring the whole company, and then the battalion. And whoever else you can find.’Minutes later, when the company commander had joined the platoon’s skirmish line, he reported back to battalion. ‘Yes, that is right, hundreds, thousands of vehicles here. Must be a division or more.’‘Do you want to retreat?’ the battalion commander asked.‘Hell no, we’re tankers.’‘You’re too weak to defend against them.’‘Then we’ll attack!’

The 'Highway of Tears' makes a cameo in War of the Red Sea:

Lovy ordered an aide to get Matti. He returned with him a few minutes later. He was the opposite of the burly, barrel-chested Nagid. Matti was a slight, thin man, well short of Nagid’s six feet. He had curly black hair and wore trendy, rectangular black glasses. Matti saluted and then extended his hand.            ‘Minister, we never met, but I’d like to say I was at the Highway of Tears. Thank you.’            Nagid shook the man’s hand. It too was small but his grip was like iron. ‘What are you thanking me for?’            ‘For allowing us to do our job. Sometimes, I close my eyes and see those Syrian vehicles on the highway, just before we shot the shit out of them. Sir, I wish you could have seen it. It was beautiful, like having a blonde laid out on the bed.’            Lovy laughed, Nagid smirked.            ‘Of course, we weren’t gentle with the Syrians, were we, Minister?’

Read 'em now, before they get Overtaken by Events!

Hezbollah Draws Redline

The Times of Israel Reports:

During a television interview with Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, the terror chief repeated a previous threat to fire rockets at Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona and at a huge ammonia storage tank in Haifa.

Hezbollah will not keep to any “red lines” in a future war with Israel, Nasrallah cautioned.

Israel has said much the same thing. As noted here before Israel has basically told Lebanon and the Lebanese people that in a future conflict they will be unconcerned with civilian casualties.

What's promised by both sides goes far beyond what I wrote about in Israel Strikes.

I started Israel Strikes in 2011. Seven years later both sides have surpassed my own apocalyptic vision.

This is one of the reasons why no sequel is in the works.

I had planned a war with Egypt but the circumstances have changed and the country has switched back to military dictatorship.

Also the Israel Strikes still fit into the geopolitics of the region even with the Syrian civil war which had not yet escalated into the nihilistic bloodbath we see today.

We've been overtaken by events as they say.

This is a great time for Israel Strikes and Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea, no?

Boxing Day Q&A

Martin: Thanks for having me over, Will.
Prof Stroock: Call me Professor Stroock, goddamn it.
Martin: I really think...
Prof Stroock: Given you were canned from you last gig at MSNBC for those awful things you said should happen to Sarah Palin, maybe you should just shut the fuck up and do what you're told.
Martin: Quite right...Professor Stroock.
Prof Stroock: And I know you're faking that accent...Paki.
Martin: If you say so. Say, what's that pounding on the closet door over there?
Prof Stroock: Pay no mind to it. Let's get this over with. And please, won't you enjoy seem tea?
Martin: mmmm...thank you. Lemon-zinger?
Prof Stroock: Yes.
Martin: Now, you were pretty tough on President Obama and Samantha Power in that previous post, weren't you?
Prof Stroock: Damn straight.
Martin: Are you advocating then, more intervention in the Middle East?
Prof Stroock: Absolutely not.
Martin: But your harsh comments on Syria and Libya.
Prof Stroock: Yes, Barry royally screwed those up. Also Iraq. Also relations with Russia.
Martin: But you would not have intervened. And the banging on the closet door is getting louder.
Prof Stroock: No it isn't. And God no. I would not have intervened.
Martin: Despite your professed Necoconism.
Prof Stroock: I couldn't care less if the Arabs blow themselves to hell.
Martin: But the rise of Isis...
Prof Stroock: Isis arose because Barry abandoned Iraq and ignored warnings about Isis in Western Iraq.
Martin: How do you square this with your continued support of the Iraq war?
Prof Stroock: Campaign.
Martin: Huh?
Prof Stroock: Campaign, the Iraq  Campaign. Iraq was part of Bush's War on Terror.
Martin: How many Iraqis were on the jets al Qaida used on 9/11?
Prof Stroock: Same number of Germans that were at Pearl Harbor, fuck-stick.
Martin: So what is it you do want?
Prof Stroock: I dunno. Let the Arabs blow themselves to hell, I don't give a crap. And let the Israelis help.
Martin: Now, to wrap up...
Prof Stroock: Thank god. More tea?
Martin: Please. I swear that banging on the closet is getting louder.
Prof Stroock: You're hearing things, Martin. This is the Earl Grey.
Martin: Delicious. Why Earl Grey and Lemon-zinger?
Prof Stroock: Those are the only kinds of tea I've heard of.
Martin: Why am I not surprised?
Prof Stroock: Shut the fuck up.
Martin: Anyway...in your book Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea, you included a BBC journalist named Martin.
Prof Stroock: Yes.
Martin:  Was that me?
Prof Stroock: Nailed it, Darwin.
Martin: One other question.
Prof Stroock: Shoot.
Martin: Did you have to make me an ass-slapping, intern snogging poof?
Prof Stroock: It was a moral imperative. Now get the hell out of here.
Martin: That reminds me, do you know what happened to the last journalist that came here.
Prof Stroock: No idea.
Martin: Hey I feel dizzy....why is everything so blury....
Prof Stroock: Heh, heh....

Fire on the (Israel) Mountain

Israel Strikes and War of the Red Sea feature a lot of terrorism against Israel.

Well, beginning yesterday terrorists have lit a series of fires across the nation causing several great conflagrations. While the fires are definitely terrorist arson it is unclear how much of this is a coordinated effort and how much is the work of copycats.

From a terrorism standpoint this move makes a lot of sense. After all Israel can shoot down any incoming rocket it wants. Attacking an Israeli school will get the jihadist a quick ticket to his 72 virgins. Israel teachers pack heat.

In Ian Slater's WWIII series (don't bother folks its not very good), KGB agents set Forrest fires in the United States.

I never had Hezbollah or Hamas do that in my books.

Which brings us to the next question, when will I wrap up the Israel Strikes series. War of the Red Sea ends with Shmuley Rosenzweig taking a dirty bomb from Quds Force commandos and walking back to his car.

Honestly I don't know.

When I was wrapping up War of the Red Sea I had a vague sense that the next fight would be with Egypt. But the Brotherhood is out of power at the nation is firmly in the hands of the army. They even had a referendum. As it happens my lovely and talented editor is married to an Egyptian man. He voted for al Sisi.

Turkey? I dunno. Again we see thawing relations between Hebrew and Turk.

So I dunno.

I thought War of the Red Sea was innovative in that it put the Israelis in a situation we don't often see them in. That is a naval conflict with a mini-amphibious invasion of Sudan. It was fun to write, that's for sure.

I don't really see the point of another mano-a-mano slug fest between the IDF and another nation. Besides, who's left?

I'm open to suggestions.

In Which Life Imitates Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea

News from Yemen:

The crew of a guided-missile destroyer fired three missiles to defend themselves and another ship after being attacked on Sunday in the Red Sea by two presumed cruise missiles fired by Iran-backed Houthi-forces, USNI News has learned.

And...

While U.S. sources haven’t confirmed the type of missiles, open source naval analyst and retired Navy Capt. Chris Carlson told USNI News on Monday the damage on Swift appears to be from the warhead used in a Chinese-built C-802 anti-ship missile (NATO reporting name CSS-N-8 Saccade). The C-802 is based on Cold War-era French technology.

In Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea, Hamas begins its rocket war against the Israelis by firing off a salvo of Chinese made C-802 missiles:

Cruising four nautical miles to the north, Captain Avram saw the two missiles impact Saar. He immediately ordered battle stations and scanned the shoreline with his binoculars.            His radioman reported, ‘Saar requests assistance, Captain.’            Avram put his binoculars on Saar, but she was obscured by smoke. He tried to peer through, but saw only more billowing smoke and occasionally an orange flame. ‘Helm, make for Saar. Radio, tell Saar we are on the way and then inform Naval Headquarters in Tel Aviv.’            Avram ordered the boat’s helicopter in the air.            As they approached Saar he could see that she was listing. Smoke billowed from two fires both within the superstructure. The boat’s five inch gun flamed as well. He could still make out the bare outline of missile contrails and followed them to the shore. He saw a flash and then another. Two more missile contrails reached into the air. There were two more flashes, and then two more after that.            Sensors reported, ‘Captain! Six contacts…make that eight contacts!’            ‘Course?’            ‘Right for us!’

Anywho, great thing, that deal we got with the Iranians, no?